She is, according to Vogue's LeAnne Schreiber, "the sworn enemy of cliche and stereotype, of those culturally reinforced images that tell us who we are and what we want" (Barrett 102). She's an artist. She's brilliant. She's a feminist. An activist. A writer. And she's also my new favorite conceptualist.
The readings on Barbara Kruger I found to be completely fascinating mainly because her style is so intense, straighforward, and weirdly consistent. While she grabs techniques from old advertisements (short, directed phrases and propaganda-like imagery), her works stand alone and evoke instant reactions with their honest, sometimes harsh accusations.
One thing I found to be the most interesting about her pieces was her usage of the word "you." Barrett focused on a single quote from Kruger to explain this: "With the question of You I say there is no You; that it shifts according to the viewer; that I'm interested in making an active spectator who can decline that You or accept it or say, It's not me but I know who it is" (99). I not only find her technique incredibly tactful and daring, but also praiseworthy. Her ideas and notions extend beyond the piece of art she creates, coming straight out and asking their viewer to react to them.
In Love for Sale, Kate Linker talks about this artistic choice as well: "She deploys the stereotypes "double address," by which it constructs the viewer twice over, addressing him or her both personally or impersonally, as individual" (29). This is something very characteristic and stylistic of Kruger's work, and makes her pieces extremely distinct and complex. Overall I really enjoyed this and hope to see a show of hers in the future.
(The picture above is one of Kruger's pieces that is particularly sensitive to the feminism movement, and is a perfect example of her usage of pronouns to create a reaction from the viewer)
Chloe Stagaman
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